Content Analysis in the Research on Reporting Styles

Abstract

Abstract: The content analysis of reporting styles enables a rough characterization of the journalistic content with regard to the news format (news stories, commentaries, feature journalism, interviews) as well as an evaluation of the journalistic style in terms of content and language. This latter question of how content is presented encompasses many research traditions and refers, for example, to the objectivity norm, horse race coverage, storytelling or news softening. The present chapter provides a brief overview of news formats and content-related or stylistic journalistic reporting styles and discusses possible further research questions and designs as well as the contribution of automated content analysis in this field.